The Day of the Beast eBook

In the distance somewhere a motor-car hummed, and
came closer, louder down the street, to slow its sound
with sliding creak and jar outside in front of the
house. Lane heard laughter and voices of a party
of young people. Footsteps, heavy and light,
came up the walk, and on to the porch. Lorna
was returning rather late from the motion-picture,
thought Lane, and he raised his head from the pillow,
to lean toward the open window, listening.

“Come across, kiddo,” said a boy’s
voice, husky and low.

Lane heard a kiss—­then another.

“Cheese it, you boob!”

“Gee, your gettin’ snippy. Say, will
you ride out to Flesher’s to-morrow night?”

“Nothing doing, I’ve got a date.
Good night.”

The hall door below opened and shut. Footsteps
thumped off the porch and out to the street.
Lane heard the giggle of girls, the snap of a car-door,
the creaking of wheels, and then a low hum, dying away.

Lorna came slowly up stairs to enter her room, moving
quietly. And Lane lay on his bed, wide-eyed,
staring into the blackness. “My little
sister,” he whispered to himself. And the
words that had meant so much seemed a mockery.

CHAPTER III

Lane saw the casement of his window grow gray with
the glimmering light of dawn. After that he slept
several hours. When he awoke it was nine o’clock.
The long night with its morbid dreams and thoughts
had passed, and in the sunshine of day he saw things
differently.

To move, to get up was not an easy task. It took
stern will, and all the strength of muscle he had
left, and when he finally achieved it there was a
clammy dew of pain upon his face. With slow guarded
movements he began to dress himself. Any sudden
or violent action might burst the delicate gassed
spots in his lungs or throw out of place one of the
lower vertebrae of his spine. The former meant
death, and the latter bent his body like a letter
S and caused such excruciating agony that it was worse
than death. These were his two ever-present perils.
The other aches and pains he could endure.

He shaved and put on clean things, and his best coat,
and surveyed himself in the little mirror. He
saw a thin face, white as marble, but he was not ashamed
of it. His story was there to read, if any one
had kind enough eyes to see. What would Helen
think of him—­and Margaret Maynard—­and
Dal—­and Mel Iden? Bitter curiosity
seemed his strongest feeling concerning his fiancee.
He would hold her as engaged to him until she informed
him she was not. As for the others, thought of
them quickened his interest, especially in Mel.
What had happened to her.

It was going to be wonderful to meet them—­and
to meet everybody he had once known. Wonderful
because he would see what the war had done to them
and they would see what it had done to him. A
peculiar significance lay between his sister and Helen—­all
these girls, and the fact of his having gone to war.